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Join us October 2-3, 2026 in Conway, AR for the 2026 MSA Confab!
We're excited to offer a range of programming and opportunities including four exhibitions, two workshops, a lively panel discussion, a Keynote address by Beili Liu, and the annual Member's Meeting lunch. Confab 2026 is a chance to meet, explore, create and connect with MSA members and the Conway community.
For detailed information on programming, visit the Confab webpage at www.midsouthsculpture.org/Confab-2026.
Silent Auction Saturday, October 3rd during the Masters Award dinner.
Bring memorabilia, materials, tools, and artwork to be auctioned off.
Proceeds benefit the Scholarship fund.
CONFAB SCHEDULE
(subject to change)
Friday, October 2
9:00am Registration/ Coffee Service
10:00am Demonstration: Exothermic Casting in Iron
10:30-11:30am Demonstration: High Shrinkage Paper and Sculptural Form
11:30am-1:30pm Workshop: Fibers to Forms
11:30am-1:00pm Lunch/Break
1:00-2:30pm Windgate Facility Tour (Natalie Kitchen)
1:30-4:30 Workshop: From Shape to Structure: Modular Geometry and Collective Form
5:00-7:00pm Exhibition Receptions: Mining the Material and MSA Select
5:00-8:00pm Conway Artwalk
7:30pm Dine Arounds
Saturday, October 3
8:30-9:00am Registration/ Coffee
9:00-10:30am Keynote: Beili Liu
11:00am-12:15pm Craft and New Technologies Panel
12:30-1:00pm Special Announcement
1:30-2:30pm Members Lunch Meeting
1:30-2:45pm High School Student Lunch/High School Student Demo: Hydro Dipping a Sculpture
2:00pm Auction Item Drop-Off Closes
3:00P-9pm Auction
3:00-4:30pm Student Scholarship Presentations
4:30-5:30pm Exhibition Receptions: Dianne Komminsk Scholarship Winners, Student Pop-Up, Outdoor Exhibition, Workshop Exhibition
6:30-9:00pm Masters Award Dinner
7:30pm Masters Award Presentation- Gene Sparling
8:30pm Auction Closes/ Results Announced
9:00pm BOD Pop-Up Exhibition and Closing Celebration
ABOUT CONFAB 2026
Keynote Speaker Beili Liu
We are thrilled to announce the confirmation of Beili Liu as our keynote speaker for Confab 2026!
Beili Liu is a visual artist who has exhibited extensively across the globe, in locations including Norway, Finland, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Lithuania, France, Belgium, Austria, Poland, China, Taiwan and across the United States. She has presented solo exhibitions at Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norwegian National Art and Culture Museum; Galerie An Der Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich, Germany; Museo di Villa Bernasconi, Como, Italy; Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center, Shanghai, China; Chinese Culture Foundation, San Francisco, CA; the Crow Museum of Asian Art, Dallas, TX; Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX; and Women & Their Work, Austin, TX, among others. Significant group exhibitions at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.; New Orleans Art Museum, LA; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Asian Art Week, NYC; Asia Society Texas Center; Artpace, San Antonio, TX; San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, CA; and internationally at the Hamburg Art Week, Germany; M.K. Ciurlionis National Art Museum, Kaunas, Lithuania; Chengdu Art Museum, China; Zhejiang Museum of Art, China; Musée de la Dentelle in Caudry, Montrouge, France; Asian Art Week, London, UK; and Bunkier Sztuki Gallery, Kraków, Poland. Liu has created public artworks in Beijing, Jilin and Shanghai, China, Bremerhaven, Germany, Taiwan, San Francisco, CA, Dallas and Austin, TX.
Liu has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2022-2024), the Pollock Prize for Creativity (2022), the Fulbright Arctic Chair, Norway (2021-2022), the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant (2016), the National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America Grant through the Museum of Southeast Texas (2014). In 2018, Liu was honored by the Texas Legislature as the Texas State Artist in 3D medium. Liu received the Distinction Award at the Kaunas Biennial, Lithuania (2011), and a San Francisco Mayor’s Award (2008) for her contribution to cultural exchange.
Liu’s work has been featured by PBS Arts in Context series, Sculpture Magazine, Art in America, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, ArtNews, Art Papers, ArtSlant, Artillery, The Huffington Post, Climate Progress, Public Art Review, Sacchi Review, UK, Helsinki Sanomat News, Finland, Morgenbladet, Norway, China Daily, Yishu, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Hamburg Abendblatt and Vita (Life) Magazine, Italy, among others.
Born in Jilin, China, Beili Liu now lives and works in Austin, Texas. Liu received her MFA degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2003) and is the Leslie Waggener Endowed Professor in the College of Fine Arts and a Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
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MSA is proud to present Confab 2026 in partnership with the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
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Thank you to our sponsors!
